Hey everybody, even though I only just made an account here I'm definitely not new to the site. I've been hanging around for ages lol and only just now decided to make an account.

This isn't my first fanfiction but it is the first one I've posted on this site. It's also the first Tony/Ziva fanfiction I've published, though, again, not the first one I've written lol.

Anyway this idea came into my head as I was thinking about the finale and Jimmy's wedding. It's a bit of sadness and humour and romance all mixed in. But mostly romance. Hope you guys enjoy. Comment if you feel like it :).

Tony scanned through the crowd of people at Jimmy and Breena's wedding reception with one target in mind: Ziva. After two scans of the room he was almost convinced that she wasn't there. After all, he hadn't seen her for half an hour and it was quite possible that she had slipped out of the room during all the commotion and celebrations to go home for the night. He was hoping that she hadn't, and got his wish when he finally spotted her at a table in the corner furthest away from him. She was sitting alone, facing toward the crowd and seemed to be pretending to pay attention to the happy couples and children on the dance floor near her. Tony could tell that she was definitely not enjoying herself, however.

He thought back to a few months ago when Ziva had been happily in a relationship and had her own chance of marriage. He would think that for someone who's just recently gotten out of a serious relationship, a wedding was not exactly a happy environment.

She'd been polite and happy and appropriately excited for the couple during the ceremony (most likely because she was on display for all to see), but now, during the reception, she seemed far away and unhappy, unwilling to socialise much and consuming much more alcohol than she probably should. He could only assume that her unhappiness was due to thoughts of Ray and what could've been. He knew that she was potentially ready to settle down, and now that marriage and the idea of a family had been within her reach, it all probably seemed helplessly too far away now.

He slowly made his way through the sea of chatting, laughing guests to where she sat. She didn't seem to notice his approach, or at least made no effort to acknowledge him as he got closer to her, and that concerned him. Either she really was that far off in her own world, or she was just ignoring him (which was bad anyway). He walked around to the back of the table and pulled out the chair next to her, which seemed to catch her attention. She looked at him questioningly as he sat down and scooted a bit closer to her. He gave her a small smile.

"Hi."

She continued to look at him with that cute little confused look on her face.

"Um...hi." She answered. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, it is Jimmy's wedding, and this is the reception, so I figured I should probably attend."

She huffed and rolled her eyes. "I mean...what are you doing...here, sitting next to me. I would have thought you would be chatting away with McGee or Abby or one of Breena's cousins or something. Not sitting here next to me, the girl who clearly nobody is taking any notice of."

"I'm taking notice of you, Ziva. I noticed two hours ago that you seemed a little down. Then I noticed that you'd been drinking a little too much, and then I noticed that I had no idea where you were because you hadn't even spoken to me in almost an hour." Ziva dropped her gaze from his and picked up her glass of wine, taking another sip. "So why have you been doing all of those things, I wonder?"

Ziva shrugged as if it didn't matter that she was sitting alone in the corner at a wedding reception. "Maybe I am simply not in a party mood. Maybe I enjoy sitting by myself and maybe I feel like drinking more than I should because I have just realised that I have to put up with a goofball of a partner for goodness knows how long." She said teasingly.

He chuckled. "'Goodness knows how long'? So you plan on sticking with me for a while then?"

He noticed that he'd actually managed to pull a smile out of her. She glanced up at him briefly before turning her eyes back to the dance floor. "If you will have me." She mumbled softly before taking another sip of her wine. "And, if Gibbs will have me." She added.

"Of course I'll have you, Ziva. I'd probably be miserable if you weren't here."

"Really?"

"Well, I can tell you from experience that I've been miserable every other time you weren't there." He paused briefly as some more upsetting memories came back to him. That time he realised that she wasn't getting on the plane that was taking them back to D.C. The moment he realised he hadn't heard from her in months. Then, hearing that her ship had been lost in a storm and there were no survivors. The moment when it hit him that she was dead.

Or so he thought.

"I really struggled back then, Ziva. When we all thought you were gone. Nothing really made sense to me after that. I barely even payed attention to what I was doing. I felt like more of a robot than a human being. Like I wasn't even controlling my own body."

She didn't say anything. Just looked down at her hands in her lap and listened.

"When we made the plan to go and take Saleem out, we weren't sure what we were going to find. For some reason, I was expecting to find your dead body lying in the middle of some dirty, dark, cold room. I guess, by that point, my mind had accepted the fact that you were gone. Not that I didn't still expect to see you sitting at your desk every morning, because I did. I'd get excited about something and say to myself 'I'll have to tell Ziva and McGee tomorrow', but then realise I'd have to settle with just telling McGee because I remembered you weren't there anymore. It wasn't a feeling of you leaving us, it was more of a feeling of you being taken from us.

"And that's what brought on the hunger for vengeance. I knew that bastard had something to do with it, and I had my mind set on taking him out if it was the last thing I ever did."

He heard her sniffle a little.

"And guess what? I did. We did. We took him out, and you were alive, by some miracle, and we brought you back home. And I'm so glad we did, because I was miserable without you."

She finally raised her head up to look at him, and he saw that her eyes were shimmering from unshed tears.

"Tony..." She said softly, "Why did you just tell me all of that? Why here? Why now?"

He took a moment to think before he answered, never breaking eye contact with her. "I wanted to remind you that you're important, and loved, and cared about. I just wanted you to realise that you matter to me."

Ziva smiled softly, still holding back her tears, and nodded. "You matter to me too, Tony. Probably much more than I have ever bothered to tell you." She reached her hand out across the table to where his was resting and lay her hand on top of his. He stared at it as she started rubbing small circles on the back of his knuckles, as if to comfort him. Eventually, their gazes both travelled back to each other.

"As much as I pretend otherwise, Tony, I really do enjoy having you around." He grinned at that, his expression picking back up. "And I am enjoying your company right now, also."

"Would you still enjoy my company if I asked you to do something you probably don't want to do?" He asked tentatively.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What exactly do you have in mind?"

She saw him grin and then felt his hand move from under hers to grasp onto it. He started to stand up and she felt him tug at her arm, willing her to stand also. "Come on, Ziva. You've been sitting in this chair for far too long."

"Tony, what on earth-"

"We're going to dance."

"No, Tony."

"Yes, Ziva." He insisted as he finally managed to get her on her feet. "I promise I won't step on your feet."

"Uh-huh." She mumbled, unbelieving. "That is not necessarily my concern."

"Then what is?" He asked as they made it to the dance floor, Tony guiding her to a random spot and turning towards her.

She smirked slightly as he turned to face her and made a big show about placing his hand on her waist and lifting up their joined hands. "My concern is that you will embarrass me." She said as he started moving them around a little. "For starters, do not do that." She pulled their raised hands down and tried to halt their somewhat swift movements across the floor.

"Do what?" He asked.

"Act as if we are waltzing."

"Well what If I want to waltz?" He asked cheekily.

"Would you like me to go and sit back down?" She asked, raising her eyebrows and pretending to move away from him.

"No! No, stay please." He pleaded, pulling her back towards him and wrapping both his arms around her waist this time. She laughed lightly at his eagerness for her to stay and hesitantly raised her own arms to hang loosely around his neck. She could feel him watching her and avoided his eyes.

"I don't bite you know."

"What?" She asked.

"You just seemed very hesitant to put your arms around me just then. I just wanted you to know that I don't bite."

She shook her head at him. "I know you don't bite. It is just that, we are partners and...this seems a little...like something two partners and friends should not be doing."

"What, waltzing?" He asked with a teasing look in his eyes.

She rolled her eyes and glanced away from him. "Never mind."

"No, Ziva, I'm sorry. Look, just...tell me what's on your mind. Please?" He said apologetically.

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment before she realised that he actually might want to hear what she had to say.

She took a deep breath to help get the words out. "This just feels different." She admitted. "That is the only way I can describe it. I do not just feel like your friend right now."

He took a moment to think about this. "Why do you think you're feeling that way?" He asked, continuing to move them slowly around in the little rhythm they'd fallen into.

"I do not know." She sighed. "Maybe it is just the wedding, or the fact that I have had too much to drink, or maybe even because of the conversation we just had, but I just feel closer to you, somehow." She shook her head again. "I do not know if that sounds weird."

"No, it doesn't sound weird at all. I actually kind of understand the feeling." He said quietly. Ziva lifted her head back up to meet his eyes with a slightly surprised expression on her face. Soon, a smile spread across her face. Tony had to admit, the desire to kiss her right now, with her in his arms, was overwhelming.

"This is nice." She concluded. "I am not entirely sure what this feeling is, but it is something like happy and carefree and something else all mixed into one. You know what I mean?"

He nodded slightly as he held her gaze. "I think I might know what that other feeling is, too."

She looked curiously at him. "What?" She whispered.

He didn't answer her with words. Instead, he tightened his hold on her, effectively pulling her closer, and her breath hitched as her own arms instinctively tightened around his neck, too.

"Kind of feels like you're floating, right?" He spoke softly, the two of them now so close together that their chests were touching.

All Ziva could do was swallow nervously and nod, finding it hard to look anywhere except his lips which were now dangerously close. She realised that she wouldn't have any objections if he were to kiss her right now. In fact, she wanted him to kiss her. It had been far too long since she last felt his lips, and she was curious to know if they still felt the same. Would they still feel soft and inviting? Would he kiss her with the same passion when they were undercover or would a kiss between them now be slow, deep and meaningful? She had barely enough time for these thoughts to cross her mind before Tony leant down the remaining inches between them and joined their lips together with a sweet softness.

Ziva's eyes fluttered closed as she savoured the current feel of his lips on her own. She was right. They still felt soft and warm and he still kissed her with certainty and definitely without hesitation, but the fiery, hot passion he'd kissed her with all those years ago was not present. There was a different type of passion in his kiss. A passion that held more meaning behind it, a little bit more need and whole heap of longing. It made her feel as if she could stay attached to his lips for all of time and die a very happy woman.

Tony could feel a unique sense of happiness that he hadn't felt in a long time wash over him. It was a similar feeling to the time when Ziva kissed him on the cheek after her return to NCIS. It was also similar to how he felt when Ziva had voluntarily allowed him to hug her after Mike had died last year. And now, she was voluntarily allowing him to kiss her for as long as he liked, it seemed.

He sensed a slight urgency in her kiss that told him she wanted to move things along. He was not going to deny her, that's for sure. He moved his lips slowly but surely against hers, parting slightly and pulling away a centimetre or so before joining their lips back together again. By this point they had stopped moving their feet altogether and he could feel Ziva's hand come up to grasp onto his hair. He could tell her breathing had sped up along with his as their public make-out continued. Tony was vaguely aware of people moving away from them to let them have their moment. He was also aware that they had only really been kissing for about ten seconds and it was already the best ten seconds of his life.

Ziva could feel herself getting dizzy from the kiss as he held her close against his body. She took a leap of faith and flicked her tongue across his bottom lip, testing the waters. He eagerly reciprocated and let his own tongue come between her lips. She moaned softly into his mouth at the feel of him and the fact that they seemed to be completely in sync, as if they'd been doing this for years. Maybe that's how it is with soulmates. She thought to herself.

She pulled back from his lips in need of air and rested her head against his. They loosened their holds on each other as they both tried to catch their breath. Tony was watching Ziva's face but she was unaware of his gaze as her eyes were closed, possibly to try and savour the moment.

After taking a few deep breaths Ziva finally opened her eyes, only to stare straight back into Tony's. Even just looking at him gave her the urge to tilt her head up and kiss him again, but she knew that doing that in the middle of a dance floor full of crowded people for a second time was probably not the best idea. Instead she removed her arms from around his neck, only to grab his left hand with her right. Tony briefly glanced at their hands and looked back up at her with a questioning look.

Ziva glanced around and spotted a glass door which led to an outside patio. She tugged him forwards. "Come with me." She ushered, pulling him towards it. Tony just glanced briefly around the room and followed her without argument.

After all, privacy sounded like a pretty good idea right now.

I hope you guys enjoyed this. It will probably be a two shot or maybe even a bit longer depending on whether or not my brain comes up with anything else to add.

Thank you for reading :).